The umbrella brand NACHBAR IN NOT has evolved from an aid campaign planned for a few weeks into a foundation with the eight major Austrian aid organizations and the ORF as a media partner.

Barely a year after Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence in what was to be the start of a bloody civil war marked by massacres, ethnic cleansing, flight, destruction, expulsion and failed armistice agreements that raged in the countries of the former Yugoslavia for many years May 26, 1992 announced the start of an aid campaign called “Neighbor in Need” for the refugees and displaced persons in the collapsing Yugoslavia.

Helping people help themselves

Over the course of ten years, the “Neighbor in Need” campaign – which in the meantime had been joined by other Austrian aid organizations such as Care, Volkshilfe, Hilfswerk Austria, Diakonie, Samariterbund and Malteser Hospitaldienst – developed new forms of help with the support of the ORF to maintain the willingness of Austrians to donate and started successful sub-campaigns such as the “Peace Initiative”, the “Seeds for Peace” campaign or the “Kosovo Aid”, where a refugee camp was set up in Shkodra with the support of the Austrian Armed Forces. The motto has always remained the same: to give the affected civilian population help to help themselves – and: “Neighbors in Need” provided humanitarian aid regardless of political,

Convoy of charity
A currency unit was quickly found for the campaign, which was born within a weekend and was given the name “Neighbor in Need”: The relief supplies – food, medicines, hygiene items – were bought in Austria and whenever 300,000 Schilling donation money was on the “Neighbours in distress” account PSK 76 00 111, a truck loaded with 20 tons of relief supplies started.

In the first week of the fundraising campaign, the financing of 400 trucks was secured, and after seven weeks the thousandth aid transport was financed. The “convoy of charity”, the metaphor for the rolling truck convoy, was not to be broken off for a total of ten years. “Neighbors in Need” also received international recognition. Other countries, such as Germany, started similar aid collections with their media companies based on the model of “Neighbor in Need”. UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Pope John Paul II paid tribute to the Austrian initiative for humanitarian aid in the neighboring country.